


silently housed in its original walls

by golden_geese



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, again: boys CAN be raped don't listen to dennis, bc that shit is not clean cut :/, he is literally gaslighting himself :/, mac and dennis were banging in season 5, nongraphic allusions to consensual sex stuff currently going on, similar to a recent fic i published, this one is very fragmented and messy, this takes place in season 5 bc, tw: nongraphic allusions to past sexual assault on a kid, when it comes to dennis' memories/trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 23:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16901436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/golden_geese/pseuds/golden_geese
Summary: sometimes bad memories stir even when you're doing something good with someone you love.from borderlinedennisr's request "dennis actually talks to mac about his trauma"





	silently housed in its original walls

Mac has the best arms. Strong, thick, tan, tattooed, no dumb tan lines on account of his penchant for ripping the sleeves off his shirts-- yeah, Dennis figures as Mac kisses him hungrily, great fucking arms. 

It’s fine. All this-- this _regularly messing around with his male roommate_ thing-- it’s fine. He can’t remember how the whole real estate scam thing they were doing ended, but they’re celebrating, or something. And if they’re going to pretend to be a gay couple to drive up the rental price of Dee’s womb tomorrow they have to sell it, right?

The sound of the rain tapping against the windows mixes with the quiet music playing-- Dennis’ music, since Mac was in such a good mood he’d agreed to whatever 80s stuff Dennis wanted to play. So quietly Dennis barely even hears, Mac moans against his lips.

He feels the usual swell of pride. Loves making people want him. Kisses the side of Mac’s mouth, his cheek, his stubbly jaw. His lips lands on Mac's neck. Another moan. The sound of Mac fumbling with his belt.

What a different thing it is, Dennis thinks, to have his mouth against a man’s neck. To have stubble tingling his lips, making them feel almost swollen-- feeling the hair stand up. His thumb trails against Mac’s adam’s apple. Having a break from high-pitched girly sounds and synthetically floral-scented skin and getting _lip gloss_ on his face is wonderful. Feeling the muscles in Mac’s back and his hard pecs and his thick arms is wonderful. Familiar and new at the same time. Risky and somehow also safe.

He can’t remember the last time he ever just kissed someone for this long. They aren’t even horizontal-- they’re sitting on Dennis’ bed, leaning into each other, fully clothed.

Or at least, they were-- when Dennis reaches down, his hand is met with the skin of Mac’s leg instead of the fabric of his pants. He moves his mouth from Mac’s neck for a moment to look. Plaid grey boxers-- and, yep.

Dennis has too much control to just accidentally get hard during a make-out session. But if that’s where things are headed, he realizes--

Mac’s mouth is back on his. A hand tangling in Dennis’ hair.

“Fuck, dude, you have the best hair, it’s so _curly_ \--”

(be a good boy dennis be quiet you have such nice curly hair don’t tell anyone or you’ll be in trouble bony hands and plastic press-on nails dragging against his skin and catching on the back of his jeans)

He freezes.

“ _Fuck,_ Den--”

Two hands in his hair. Their bodies are so close, he can feel the heat of Mac’s skin, the swell under his boxers, his pulse. He’s being nudged down, he realizes. Mac is pushing him onto his back. Grinding on top of him. Kissing him harder. 

(dust and cigarette butts and glue and old books the library always smells so stale and he didn’t even need a book he came in to return one of dee’s books for her because she wanted to flirt with some 8th grader out by the baseball diamond)

Hands exploring. The rain thumps heavier. The music seems to swell. Cars blasting their horns as they rip by on the street below.

(high-pitched high-pitched this is our little secret dennis dennis you’re such a good boy dennis _dennis_ )

“Dennis?”

He’s still frozen. Laying flat, eyes wide, lips parted, arms shackled by hands that haven’t touched him in two decades.

(always taping things always smoothing the tape down with her long plasticky nails and the sound it made is appalling)

“Dennis, dude, are you okay?”

Mac is holding himself up, hovering above Dennis, a red splotch on his neck.

“Why’d you stop?” Dennis manages to ask, voice hoarse and tiny and pathetic.

“Because you weren’t… into it anymore.”

Dennis tries not to notice the disappointment and hurt in Mac’s warm, warm eyes.

“And I mean. I’m not gonna pin you down and rape you, dude,” Mac adds.

Dennis blanches. Thinks, for a moment, that he might throw up.

(he never could though sat on the bathroom floor leaning against the wall heaving heaving heaving nothing his stomach muscles ripping themselves to shreds nothing remembers he hasn’t eaten since)

This isn’t the first time this has happened. When he was seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, he thought, maybe if he could just have sex with only girls who were younger than him, maybe if he could have sex more times than however many times it had happened in the library, maybe he could stamp out the memories like a spent cigarette butt, maybe he could run them over with his car-- but it never fully subsited. All these years, every once in a while, he’s having sex with someone and they creep back. Usually he goes into override mode. Turns the tables. Makes sure he’s on top, holds the girl down, puts his hand over her mouth, pretends it’s a fetish thing. Puts himself in control until he can’t feel the fingernails or hear the memories anymore. Usually, he’s too petrified to freeze and he just carries on harder and harder. Because he knows he can’t not. Because it’s with a girl he barely knows who thinks he’s some confident strong man dripping with sensuality. But now-- it’s with maybe the only person he fully trusts, maybe the only person who can ever make him feel safe, and it’s too much, and he can’t override his way through it.

(he can hear her nails scraping against tape feel her dry hair against his neck)

(the liberty bell is a replica he can hear her saying to his whole class pointing at the chalkboard with her bony finger projecting images of philadelphia’s storied past onto the screen the liberty bell is a replica she says her small eyes the lightest blue he’s ever seen staring into him trapping him pinning him down in his plastic chair)

(maybe he’s a replica too)

“Den,” Mac says, softer, gentler, quieter. He can be so fucking soft sometimes. So loving and caring. Small smiles and warm eyes and ‘you should drink water, Dennis’ and locking the doors each night to keep them safe. Doing his bullshit ocular pat-downs. Dennis knows they’re bullshit, but somehow, even if they are-- knowing Mac pre-approves every single person who walks into the bar is comforting.

“Sorry,” Dennis barely whispers.

“It’s okay.” Mac moves off of him. Strokes the hair off Dennis’ forehead. “What’s going on, man?”

He draws a shaky breath. “Bad memories,” he suggests. Feels like he’s being choked. Rubs at his neck. Sits up.

“Bad memories? Bad ...sex memories?”

He nods. “Yeah. But it’s fine.”

“Dude, do you mean the thing with the librarian in middle school?”

He won’t look at Mac. Can’t accept the warmth in his eyes.

The song ends. Another starts. The rain, the wind, the cars continue their tirades outside. Too much noise to even pretend it’s just him and Mac and nothing and no one else in the entire world.

“Yes,” he finally says.

“You ever… talk about it with anyone?” Mac asks carefully. 

“No.”

Mac is silent for a moment. Then he scoots back, leaning against the pillows. “Come here.”

Slowly, Dennis does as he says. Can’t look at him still. Instead, elects to put his head on Mac’s lap. Hands in his hair. When did the room get so damn cold?

“Maybe you should, man. If it freaks you out when you’re in the middle of sex. Does that happen a lot?”

“Sometimes.”

Any other time, he thinks, he’d push Mac away and say something mean and stomp off to be alone and drink himself into a stupor. But now he’s kind of in too deep. This whole thing with Mac, he thinks-- they’re in too deep.

“I’ll be okay in a sec,” he says, his voice still not sounding right. He clears his throat. “Then we can keep going if you want.”

“No, dude, let’s just try again tomorrow.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Dennis doesn’t respond. Stares at the dresser. Tries to swallow the knot in his throat. Tries to be normal. His normal self. The person that Mac actually wants to be around.

(one day it happened twice once during lunch once after school and the next day he felt like he couldn’t talk like she had snatched his vocal chords like ursula in the little mermaid)

(he wouldn’t talk or look at anyone and the teacher ended up calling his parents and his mom was out of town so his dad had to pick him up and he was pissed off and annoyed and just dropped him off at home and went back to work and dennis poured a couple tablespoons out of each bottle of liquor he could find into a thermos and made dee drink it with him that night and drank until he finally threw up)

“I thought that thing with the librarian wasn’t bad, though,” Mac says.

“Huh?”

“You bragged about it, bro. How you lost your virginity when you were fourteen.”

He shudders. Has a bad taste in his mouth. “Yeah.”

“But it was, like, traumatic? I don’t get it. She like raped you?”

“...you can’t rape boys,” he says.

“I mean, like, it’s bad memories and all.”

“Yeah.” This conversation means nothing. It’s going in circles. Dennis can’t even keep up with it.

“So she… did rape you?”

“Can we just drop it,” he says. “I’m tired.”

“Yeah, man. Okay.”

He lifts his head enough to see the alarm clock on the nightstand. It’s almost midnight. That’s early enough to go to bed and not be totally pathetic.

“You tired?” He asks Mac quietly.

“Sure.”

“Can we go to bed?”

“Yeah, Den. Sure. Whatever you want.”

**Author's Note:**

> follow me at golden-geese.tumblr.com! please leave a comment if you liked this, i reply to every single one and i appreciate them SO much!!!


End file.
